A Woodward of Mass Destruction

Cub Reporter Bob Woodward's revelation about receiving information regarding Valerie Plame before Scooter sounded off, looks bad, very bad. (Fitzgerald is already working to present to another grand jury). In the limpid prose of the Independent:

Now it is Mr Woodward's turn to come under suspicion that his powerful friends mean more to him than his professional obligation to his readers. At no time in any of his public rants against Mr Fitzgerald did he indicate he might have a personal stake in the story.

From repeated recent comments attacking prosecutor Fitzgerald and denying his own knowledge, Bob Woodward repeatedly misled us on what he knew, not to protect important principles of the free press, but to protect his sources, which are indistinguishable from powerful friends.

I didn't buy Judy Miller's argument about the First Amendment principles involved, and I'm not buying it now. We do need clear laws protecting sources, but I am appalled if not surprised at the cozy relationship between this fallen paragon of independent journalism and the administration. Woodward, like Miller, hangs around the powerful, and now seems to adore them.

But the Bill of Rights is not meant to protect the arrogant and powerful from the scrutiny of the people. Just the opposite.

On the bright side, this reopens a broad investigation of the White House, and turns a legal proceeding back into a political one. The Plame affair is becoming a weapon against an overcozy establishment media - political elite relationship. It might help turn writers back into journalists.